Bepo's Wedding - Law's Collection 3
by Harmonica Smile
Summary: Law braced himself for the best friend, invested-last-partner, concerned relative, talk. He seemed to attract them like flies to a dung heap - though the scent of manure was quite the sought after fragrance on Zou. The Pirate King crown has been Luffy's for a number of years when Pedro pulls Law aside for 'chat' on the day of Bepo's wedding. Just what did happen to Bepo's brother?


**A/N: Damn it chapter 878**! Though it makes sense. I'm going to wait and see though. . . This fic was written just before 877 & 878\. Well, it is canon divergent.

This is part of a series supplementary to the long fic, _Repossession_ , but can be read alone. Please note: One of the premises of _Repossession_ is that Law escaped with Penguin from Doflamingo when he was 16. Cora died when Law was 13, but Law remained with Doflamingo, involuntarily.

That's not so important, except as background. However, the way that Penguin and Law meet Bepo is not SBS canon, and Law was recaptured by a fleeing Doflamingo after Dressrosa, so he never got to Zou. Therefore, he's never met Pedro. I hope you enjoy this, and sorry for repetition for anyone following the Law's Collections Series - Part 1. This takes place once Luffy is pirate king and the world is far calmer and fairer.

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 **Law's Collections 2: Bepo's Wedding.**

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Bepo's bride was a warm-hearted Mink who had known his older brother, Zepo, before he disappeared. She was about five years older than Bepo, and many years younger than Zepo, as was Law's navigator. Law couldn't think of anyone more deserving of mothering than his friend. From what he'd heard, it seemed she might be the type. She wasn't any Nami, that's for sure.

All of the wedding party and guests were staying in Nekomamushi's village. Air circulated freely under the houses, built on stilts, keeping the occupants cool. The twice-daily showers Zunisha washed over the island flowed right under them. They were charming. Law wondered about the practicalities of a holiday home perched on the back of a wandering elephant. He'd need to discuss it with Marco.

Bepo had asked Law to meet him outside, before the ceremony got underway. Pedro was nearby, catching a bit of fresh air, having popped out for a smoke. The jaguar Mink squatted by the leg of one of the houses. The forest guardians' captain was officiating the ceremony, so Law guessed it made sense that the kept an eye on the bear. The two Heart pirates chatted in front of the house.

Pedro moved with a lethality that caught Law's attention. You'd be stupid not to pay him mind. They'd met a few times across the years, but Law had been in captivity when Strawhat met up with his crew - the Heart crew - on Zou, two long years before their captain had been able to see them again.

He didn't have the bond with Pedro that Luffy did, and the ex-Nox pirate captain viewed him with some suspicion.

Penguin and Law had come across Bepo as teens when they'd made landfall after fleeing Doflamingo, Law finally free from his first enslavement. Penguin, had experienced greater freedom than Law in his short lifetime, and recognised Bepo as a Mink, a long way from home.

They'd dragged their small boat onto a rugged coast that was definitely in North Blue somewhere. Snow fell steadily. They were able to hide the boat behind an outcrop of rocks, they hoped, but they knew it wouldn't be long before Doflamingo's scouts were after them.

It was a long story, but they'd run across the poor disoriented polar bear wandering the coastline, looking lost and scared – just like them. Only Penguin and Law weren't lost, they just didn't know where they were. Bepo had many advantages, prime among them were that he was huge and very white. He blended right into the landscape. His fur looked so warm. Doflamingo never dressed Law in much and he was knock-kneed with cold.

Hiding behind the bear's bulk - the Mink's coat at one with the snowy terrain - had given the two boys some immediate cover from Doflamingo's goons. They'd been exhausted and badly needed sleep. Bepo's warmth saved them from the icy cold. He'd only been a child, but it also only took a year for a polar bear to grow to full size, and there were a number of summers behind him by the time they met.

Law wasn't sure if he would have stayed free from Doflamingo for the ten years he had without Bepo's initial intervention. He was grateful for the time he spent sailing the seas as captain of his own ship - or submarine - even if his navigator had no way of preventing or protecting him from the second capture.

He walked up to the adult bear now, despite Pedro's glower – what was up with him? He heard him exhale cigarette smoke and spit to the side. Maybe he thought he'd taken the bear-mink away from his older brother.

"Don't you get fur all over my clothes," Law growled at Bepo. He could suit up, but didn't enjoy it. That time talking about shoes and ships and sealing wax with the walrus had not gone well for him, tie or no tie. Whole fish, or no whole fish. His concession to the occasion, Bepo's wedding, was dress shoes, and trousers. Oh. And he'd changed his earrings so that one pair of his golden hoops were embossed with tiny paws. He wondered if his navigator noticed.

Bepo lifted Law and nuzzled him. Pedro watched on, fascinated. Wasn't the pirate ashamed? A tinge of red coloured his face, but he didn't seem to mind. Then again, the Don Quixote underling had known Bepo for a long time. Maybe he understood the way of the Mink.

"Damn, Bepo," Law growled as he put him down, brushing white hair from his clothes.

"Captain."

Law raised an eyebrow in query, still patting at his shirt. Bepo tapped a claw to his chin, and tipped it up, gently. Law paused, and met his eyes. The bear ran a furry knuckled-back digit over the scar of his captain's grazed face, the finger surprisingly soft. He then caught and held Law's wrists where the permanent indentations from shackles, a long time removed, but also a long time on, were visible. He shook his head. Don't apologise, Bepo, Law thought.

His captain's eyes really had lost so much of their shadow since he and Marco had made their way in the world, settled into their island home and were obviously together for the long haul. Hell, they were more than half way there already. Law's clinics were doing really well, and Bepo enjoyed working for them.

It could be stressful at times - they were crisis centres - but he always felt good helping out. It was much better than the bar work he'd been doing before that; the Heart Pirates, most pirates, not having much pillaging to do once the New World eased into its own middle age. Plus, he loved being the poster boy of the annual commemorative tea-towel they sold to support the clinics. He was always surprised at how popular they were.

Law really couldn't pull away from Bepo without calling his devil fruit power into play.

"Don't," he said softly, a conversation only between them, but Pedro's ears pricked up. Jack the Drought had left one tattered and torn, but it hadn't affected his hearing. "It wasn't your fault. So much time has passed."

Bepo dropped hold of one of Law's wrists, and Law put a hand to Bepo's furry cheek. He almost had to stand on tiptoe.

"It's a day for celebration, friend."

Bepo's smile widened and matched Law's own in its intention. Law smiled broadly on occasion, but not in unfamiliar territory, or when broaching painful topics. Bepo had known him for long enough to be appreciative of the small curve of his lips.

"It will be a good day, won't it, captain?"

"I guarantee it."

Law looked over at Pedro, crouched like a revolutionary waiting for his carrier pigeon. He wondered if Minks ate birds.

Pedro returned the look, his hair falling over his face, and nodded decisively, teeth bared. Yes, it would be.

"Get yourself ready. I can't wait to meet Mina."

Bepo's eyes sparkled. "She's the best, captain, "I'm sure you'll love her."

"I'm sure I will."

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 **oOOo**

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Once Bepo left, Law braced himself for the best friend, invested last partner, concerned relative, talk. He seemed to attract them like flies to a dung heap - though it was rumoured the scent of manure was quite the sought after fragrance in Zou. He was pleased that those he loved had people who cared for them so much, but what did they really know about Law? Especially when it came to his friendship with Bepo. He'd known the Mink longer than most of them, even if he had been born on their island.

Pedro uncurled himself from the base of the house and meandered over, or maybe he menaced over. No mincing of words or stride in that coiled body. He offered Law a cigarette. Law declined, and Pedro lit one up for himself, using electro, the flame sparking through his thumbnail - claw. The Heart Captain wondered if he could do the same with counter-shock. He'd never tried. The whole two thumbs thing required for the manoeuvre just about ruled it out. Though he'd managed to send a current through Doflamingo when he was for all intents and purposes and amputee on the Dressrosa battleground.

"His brother was a good soul."

Oh, that was a surprise. The gruff voice wasn't. Still, he waited for the threat.

"I understand that you found each other, miles from here when the currents took Bepo to the Far North. He fell off Zunisha's leg. Too curious for his own good. At least that's what he's told us."

"The Far North suited him. He guaranteed Penguin's and my freedom."

Some chickens and roosters scratched under the house. Law guessed they were kept for eggs. Zou's climate was about as far from North Blue's as you could get.

"And I understand that you guaranteed his."

"We take care of each other." All of his crew did.

"He'd follow you to the end of the earth." Pedro clenched his cigarette between his teeth, crossed his arms against his body.

"Ah," Law agreed. It was so. Lucky there was little need to do so nowadays.

"Bepo's brother was the same, though nowhere near as apologetic."

"It's kind of a Bepo tic."

"No kidding."

Law waited for him to elaborate. Bepo hadn't spoken much about his brother, even when they met him. Just that the young Mink had fallen into the ocean, trying to get to his sibling, or to feel some kind of connection to him, as the older mink had been out and about on some kind of expedition. He'd told Law he had wanted to learn navigation so he could find his way back to Zou. He was a hell of a long way from home.

"You're not cruel to him, are you? To make him cower so much?" Pedro seemed to have just the one facial expression. Ferocious. His eyes were narrowed, his hand on his sword.

Law's lip curled. He held his nodachi casually. "In my experience, men express their cruelty with whips, chains and words. With limiting freedom. I use none of them against Bepo or any of my crew."

"There are a thousand ways to be cruel," Pedro said.

"Ah." Didn't Law know it.

"I hear Doflamingo was a very cruel master."

A knowing anger, resentment, flashed across Law's eyes but he bit his tongue.

"Bepo missed you with a vengeance, but I'm glad you didn't take him to Dressrosa."

Law just nodded. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if Joker had made him harm Bepo, or if the shichibukai had harmed him himself. The Mink would not have been able to stop himself from trying to fight beside his captain. If it came to that.

It wasn't the original plan, but just as he'd put the chances of beating the Yonkou at thirty-percent when he'd proposed an alliance to Luffy, he put his chances of surviving Dressrosa even lower. He didn't need to take anyone down with him.

"Big Mom is not much better."

Another unexpected turn. So this wasn't a discussion of how the apple never fell that far from the tree, and that if the apple was poisoned, then what chance did it have of _not_ poisoning others? He felt his own defenses relax a bit. His curiosity spiked.

"I wasn't always a pirate, Captain Trafalgar."

Law waited. None of them were. Except for him, comparatively speaking. Dellinger, definitely. Perhaps, Drake.

Pedro indicated the stairs leading up to the nearest house. They wandered over and sat. The Mink was dressed for the wedding. Now, that cat could rock a suit.

"I headed an expedition to search for the poneglyphs many years ago, and we all know how that ends for most people."

Law nodded his head against his nodachi. A 382,000,000 beri bounty for Pedro, or your whole town and people destroyed, as had happened to Robin. Life as a fugitive. There were a million other methods of persecution and annihilation the government had up their sleeves.

"May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so when the World Government decided I was a pirate, my fellow explorers and I became the Nox pirates. Pekoms was with our crew."

Law had only met the lion Mink and ex-Big Mom subordinate leading up to this wedding. He was a flashy dresser like the flamingo, and as selective with his kindness. This was Law's first trip to Zou. Luffy had filled him in on what happened at Whole Cake Island and after when they'd been together, way back when. He'd read about the zoan, of course. Law liked to know who was a threat, or not. Both to himself or other powers.

"About five years before Luffy came to Zou, we ran into trouble, and Pekoms and the rest of the crew took off. Only Zepo, Bepo's brother, and I remained together, trying to follow our original goal. Big Mom had some poneglyphs. We wanted to get a rubbing. Zepo was loyal. He wouldn't leave my side."

Ah, that's what this was about.

"Big Mom rescued Pekoms and the crew and they pledged loyalty to her. We got caught and she sucked out Zepo's soul. He'd been my comrade for so many years."

Pedro drew hard on his cigarette, and pulled the fedora he was wearing more firmly over his face. Law knew that gesture.

"She took the 30 years of life he had left and that was the end of it for him. She extinguished his spirit like snuffing out a candle. Combined, we owed her 100 years of our lives, though. Zepo had spun her roulette wheel, and he paid the ultimate price. Next, it was my turn."

Pedro's voice was a very quiet but constant snarl now, anger shining through every word. He didn't possess the garrulousness that Law had witnessed in the Cat Viper. He couldn't imagine the Captain of the Whale Forest Guardians singing about lasagna.

"Big Mom was going to remove seventy years from my life expectancy, but Pekoms argued it down to sixty. He has his own brand of faithfulness. I gouged my eye out as retribution for having taken her subordinate's vision, so that the years I had to relinquish dropped to fifty and I could return to Zou. I had to tell Zepo's family. New things were afoot in the world, and I also wanted to usher that in with my people, not be stuck in the molasses of Totto Land."

Law was quiet. He had no people to tell, but he knew all about new eras.

"Like I said, Zepo never apologised in the way that Bepo does. He didn't have that habit. I know Bepo can fight but I wonder if Zepo might have taught him a trick or two. He was hardcore."

Bepo had not been at all aggressive when Penguin and Law first encountered him, but maybe it was latent.

"I'm glad we live in more peaceful times."

"Thanks to you, Pedro-ya."

"Ah, you had a hand in that yourself."

The cat drew his cape a little closer. He was happier up in the trees rather than exposed in the village like this. He kept a watchful eye, not just on Law.

"Not much of one after the second escape."

Pedro glanced at him. That had made all world headlines.

"You were there when we took down Kaidou. Your support of Luffy meant the world to him, and you set it all in motion. At Punk Hazard. That was you."

"There were miracles before that, and most of them bore Strawhat's name." Law didn't begrudge him that. It was just a fact. He might put things in motion, but it was Luffy who pushed them through to the finish line in whatever infuriating, unconventional manner he had. "After, also."

Law didn't have the energy nor the inclination to let Pedro know just how much he'd been broken after that captivity, Doflamingo surviving Dressrosa and making sure he used the captive Law's lacerated skin as a way to lick clean his own wounds, with his very acid, acerbic, and damaging tongue. Hot on the heels of that was a brief internment in the marine prison. But he guessed he contributed some way toward upsetting the balance of the unstable, corrupt world at the time. That had been the plan.

"If I could keep Bepo away from Doflamingo I was going to. Sorry about Zepo. The world was fucked up then and it could have happened to any one of us. I'm sure he would have loved to have been here today."

Pedro barely moved his head in acknowledgement. He'd gained his years back with Luffy's defeat of Big Mom. It felt good to know he'd be living a bit longer, even if Zepo had lost the chance. Those regained years meant he _could_ marry Bepo and Mina today. He leaned over and placed a paw on Law's shoulder. A surge of haki from the other man, probably involuntary, shot through his body. The jaguar gave the shoulder a squeeze, sent a slight spark of electro, and lifted his paw. No need for anyone to get too comfortable.

"Sorry, man."

"Force of habit," Law said by way of apology, but dusted his shoulder. What was that little flash of power for?

Pedro had gouged out his own eye, his scar was apparent, under his hair. He wondered what Law was wearing on his skin, under his skin?

The jaguar sat back on the stairs, looking up at the blue sky. A beautiful day for Bepo's nuptials.

"When I came back to Zou, I had to face Zepo's parents of course. I'd been surprised that Zepo had so little time left on earth. He must have had a condition, because he wasn't that old, but his parents _were_ getting on. Bepo was the late surprise cub of the family.

"It broke their heart. I didn't have to tell Bepo. He'd gone missing nine years before. The younger bear adored Zepo. His older brother almost had a Mohawk. The top of his fur was a dark black. He wasn't a martial arts master like Bepo, but those sharp, sharp teeth and claws really were something."

"Bepo has those."

"Hmm," Pedro tapped his own incisors, "So he has. Zepo fought with a staff. His parents were still grieving the loss of Bepo, swept from Zunisha, and now on top of that, they learn they'd definitely lost their other son, a fierce warrior, adventurer and scholar. You can imagine how they felt. How I felt delivering the news.

"As for Bepo, how do you find your way back to a moving island when you're only eight? Even though he would have been in his late teens at the time, finding their youngest took on a new urgency for them. We renewed the search and searched for a long time of course, but there was no sign of him. I mean, how _did_ he end up on the other side of the Grand Line?"

Law shrugged. "I think it all had to do with whatever ship he grabbed a ride on."

"Stowed away on."

"Yeah."

"So, anyway, Pirate Captain, Trafalgar Law," and Pedro didn't attempt to touch him again, and he spoke into the courtyard, rather than facing the Heart pirate, a cigarette still gripped between his teeth, "Thank you for sending Bepo away. Thank you for making sure he found his way home."

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 **Thanks very much** for reading. I hope it wasn't too OOC, or confusing. Law has a tea-towel of Bepo and Mina's wedding of course. It hangs with the rest of the collection that he and Marco have in their house. Much of this fic is based on Chapter 850 of the manga, and the SBS.


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